Many people, particularly those who are elderly or handicapped, have substantial difficulty with bowel movements or have no ability at all to voluntarily evacuate their bowels. These people often require daily enemas and in some cases manual removal of fecal matter or even a colostomy becomes necessary. The use of conventional devices for administering enemas is inconvenient and uncomfortable for the patient, inefficient in the removal of fecal matter, and often unsanitary.
Colonic irrigation devices have been developed but have not proven to be entirely successful. Some of the prior art devices are expensive, bulky, difficult to operate and require that the patient be brought to the apparatus for treatment. The patient insertion nozzles or specula of the prior art devices are uncomfortable, often unsanitary and do not produce the motions of the lavage liquid within the colon necessary to loosen, break up and purge the fecal matter in the most efficient manner. While the patient can manually operate a few of the prior art devices with difficulty, most require operation by an attendant and in cases of incapacitated patients, the constant attention of an attendant is always required. In addition, since the attendant can not always judge when the proper amount of lavage liquid has been introduced into the patient, the patients colon is often not sufficiently cleaned.
Examples of some prior art irrigation devices are illustrated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,317,851 of Arnett, 2,027,588 of Hannon, 3,042,039 of Dahlstrom, and 3,771,522 of Waysilk, and 4,262,239 of Ardizzone.